In the office, Lehman was talking about this to Perlman.

Although Amber Video’s current spending speed is not fast, after the content price increase and the TV station blockade deepened, Black and others have not yet started a real money-burning mode in order to attract more user traffic—

If you directly negotiate signing contracts from one region, you will lose more than 1 billion in a minute.

In 2014, Netflix promoted it in the French region and spent 1.2 billion yuan to buy exclusive content, which only ensured that the French business could expand to form a film library for local streaming websites and maintain stock competition.

Furthermore, Lehmann doesn’t want his own streaming media platform to rely solely on the group’s production business to transfusion. On the one hand, the flow of funds is very troublesome; on the other hand, the channel sector is easy to retain funds, which is not a good choice. Only by properly inhaling capital and attracting strong support can Amber be better protected.

Of course, a good time is needed to choose a round A financing, and after communicating with everyone, I initially chose to choose one or two months after the launch of "Game of Thrones".

In Lehman's idea, it is just a big achievement, and holding more chips can be exchanged for more favor from capital. However, the problem is that generally, the period of pulling in between will be very long when the financing negotiations are released.

The money of capital is not blown by a strong wind. Their valuation of each step of the project and their judgment in every direction will change at any time. In addition, the Internet products have a little randomness, so they are obviously determined to pay attention to financing next year, but they must first deal with various capitals in the near-term of the year.

According to Perlman, "If you want to take advantage of the positive news to increase the valuation, it will be too late to wait for "Game of Thrones" to be launched. Just to determine the intention to determine the conditions for equity exchange, you can't even understand the basic demands without talking about a few rounds. In addition, it takes time to raise money. In addition, what the boss said, you want to rely on the increase in users brought by "Game of Thrones" to strongly enter the UK and French regions. In order to form a linkage with the product in promotion, you also need sufficient preparation, otherwise there will be no time."

In other words, after carefully listening to Lehman's idea of ​​Amber's next operation node, Perlman pointed out with certainty that before the project is launched, capitals must be aware of it and keep an eye on it at any time, and then wait for "Game of Thrones" to achieve ideal results and start to become popular. When exclusive traffic is drawn, quickly finalize the last step of investors and negotiate resources. In this way, there will be enough capital to allow it to blossom everywhere in the streaming field wherever the copyright of "Game of Thrones" is placed.

"You still understand." Lehman praised.

"Boss, you are the one who maintains our brand production capabilities. Without content, how can our other businesses follow us?" Perlman also laughed and gave him a flattery.

"You said it very well just now, well... I have another idea." Lehman continued: "I only raised about 10% to 15% of Amber's A round. In addition, I am going to take out 10% as an option reward for some of the personnel, but then the management will cash out and give priority to platform repurchase. You and Joseph will take a charter for this."

"yes."

"Also, you get 2% of this part."

"I have already received dividends in film and television copyright development." Perlman immediately spoke.

"One code is the same as one code, just do it."

...

One pm.

Ron called and said that he had made an appointment with a fund partner in Hongshi and would come to Amber's headquarters to chat around 2 o'clock.

It has to be said that as old VCs (red shirts are trust system, divided into three levels, the highest is partners, the intermediate level is investment director, and the lowest level is investment manager and analyst. Its characteristic is limited partnership and assumes the corresponding trustee responsibilities), their sense of smell has always been sensitive, and their attention to the streaming media industry has long been started.

In addition, Leman also likes the operation of Red Shirts - they always invest in equity in non-listed companies that are optimistic about in middle and middle school, and provide corresponding management and value-added services to assist the company's growth, and eventually exit through IPO or other means to achieve capital appreciation.

You can simply understand that this kind of institution is aimed at the investment rate and is also a disguised financial management tool. However, the threshold for starting investment is higher, the cycle is longer than that of the stock market, but the investment risk is also smaller, and it is more suitable for large-level capital operation.

So they don’t care about management and operations after listing, that’s not their focus. They are only responsible for the funds raised - this type of VC is generally close to wealthy people, investment funds and banks.

Moreover, they generally like to lead the investment, which perfectly fits Lehman's channel options for raising funds.

After receiving the call, I sat in the office for a while, and felt that it was almost time, Lehman went to Amber.

Today is Tuesday. After arriving at the company, Ron has arranged everything and has some decorations placed in the vacant reception room.

After a while, Ellen Diff, one of the Red Shirt's partners, led the team.

This is a white man in his forties, wearing frameless glasses, greets Lehman warmly as soon as he sees Lehman.

"I have heard of Mr. Lehman's name for a long time, but I have never been able to meet him."

"Please sit."

After some politeness, the other party brought two people, and Lehman only brought Ron and some information.

After getting to know each other, Ellen has the characteristics of an investment institution and is very efficient. He doesn't wait until the coffee is finished, so he gets to the point.

There is no way, Hongshan had the idea of ​​investing in the streaming media field, especially seeing Netflix’s cake made by Goldman Sachs, ****, Dadi Capital and other peers, and the environment is hot, of course, I also want to find a good place to enter the market.

Amber, which Mann Media Holdings, is the one they think is the most suitable one.

In terms of market share, Amber and Hulu are equal, only slightly worse than Netflix and Amazon, which suddenly increases its resources;

In terms of business prospects, it has received absolute support from the two production brands of Firefly and Marvel. It is very good in exclusive content, and the user retention rate is not low. In addition, Hulu has not yet revealed the idea of ​​financing, and has been slowly developing by selling advertising spaces and old dramas. No matter how you look at it, this one is the best in the top competition for streaming media.

"We have talked about you before and have interest in this direction. I heard that you are already considering the A round of financing, so we rushed over immediately. What kind of ideas do you think about this? Can you talk about it in detail..."

"No hurry, I know what you think about the streaming media industry first?"

If you can't control the initiative, you can control the initiative. Aren't you optimistic about streaming media? How optimistic are you?

The other party smiled, and also took advantage of some investment in the Internet and other products to chat. As they were chatting, Leman suddenly became curious about his operations on the last TV station, and asked him what impact would even increase the purchase cost of old dramas have on the development of streaming media?

"In fact, there are not so many problems. Streaming is a new thing. The existence of new things will inevitably have a transformation process. I think the original price of Netflix purchased content was not quantified enough. In the future, the two parties will gradually reach a consensus, such as how much cost and ratings dramas cost in a year. You are producing content. You should be more confident than me in this area. No matter what, those small factories hope that streaming media will become a fixed source of wealth to reduce the pressure on their production."

"Okay, you're all testing me." Ellen was curious about his competitive positioning for Amber when he heard Lehman say so much. "It's because Netflix has experienced that blow and has slowly recovered. The number of users itself is not a big deal. With this foundation, the stock price is definitely recovering. Do you think Amber can reach a desired height under its pressure?"

"The streaming media market is so big and has been expanding, which can accommodate competition. My previous view on this business was to supplement the profit points outside the original copyright production structure. I think it would be better to do it yourself than to authorize it to Netflix. Now, the total number of paid users at home and abroad is 5.8 million, and it has accumulated a considerable amount of size."

Lehman handed over last week's visit compiled by Amber, the active data and user viewing time reports, "These are real data evidence. Of course, I have been doing streaming for a while. I believe you all know that its problem is not entirely in user selection and grabbing traditional TV viewing media, but how to cultivate users' habit of screening content through streaming media platforms. Although Netflix has nearly 25 million users, its activity can often be maintained at around one million, but due to the limitation of content replacement, the influence of the TV station has always been, and the jump of the entire industry

It is very frequent, and it often renews Amber this month and Netflix will be renewed next month. After reading the new content accumulated by Netflix, it may go to other platforms. In short, the content revolves around content, not around products. The reason why Amber has its current stock is that you all know that exclusive content from Fireflies and Marvel has helped a lot, and naturally we can understand that its next development is to transplant more tag groups to the platform itself, such as those who like to watch science fiction, Japanese cartoons, horror movies, or audience groups in other regions."

Ellen was not surprised, "This is also the reason why we came here. Amber has reached a bottleneck period, and I think you seem to pay great attention to overseas users. Do you feel that you can't compete in localization or the cost of competition is too high?"

"It's all users, and there is no existence or struggle." Lehman neither affirmed nor denied the statement of competition cost. "With the traffic, the radiation will be greater. Moreover, we do not rely entirely on the enthusiasm and continuity of users' payments. Advertising business can now bring us millions of revenue in a month, and there is still a lot of room for growth in the future."

"But streaming media always has to focus on the user itself, right? I don't think you can continue to sacrifice the user's viewing environment and spread the homepage with advertisements."

"Of course not, just maintain your current placement."

"Oh, it seems that you are very planning." Ellen smiled slightly, "So, there should be no unnecessary investigation between us. I am optimistic about the future of streaming media. Everyone sees the charm of smart mobile terminals, and you should also understand us. Red Shirt has always been willing to help platforms like Amber expand and add value."

"Can I hear your quotation plan?"

"Three months ago, a colleague of mine quoted 60 million, with a valuation of 540 million. Now we offer 200 million, get 4%, and a valuation of 4.8 billion. If you have any service needs, we are very willing to help, such as screening investors."

“Low.”

“Low?”

Ellen Diff didn't expect that Lehmann said frankly without even considering it.

"Yes, it's far from the ideal valuation amount of our team."

"What does this mean more far?"

“Either the amount or the equity price is appropriate.”

"What are you thinking about?"

"For red shirts, if 200 million comes in, they can only get 1.53%, and they have to help us solve the problem of traffic promotion and solve the follow-up investments of any group such as Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, etc. I believe you have this ability and credibility."

"Haha, are you kidding? 200 million diluted 1.53%, with a pre-investment valuation of 13 billion? If you have millions of subscribers now or local, I can accept it. As for assisting other investors in the follow-up investment, if the transaction is successful, I can help introduce and introduce it."

Ellen's face was a little dark. He thought he was sincere enough. He collected so much information in advance and gave a pretty good price. However, now when he heard about Amber's conditions, he always felt that they were too confident or they didn't calculate the right place, otherwise the valuation amount would be too much different.

Red Shirts are not concerned about money. Netflix's market value has now fallen to around 100 billion, and it is nearly 190 billion at its peak, which shows that this field is indeed favored by many investors (there are no retail investors in the US stock market, and the most time they are all fundraising operations). They are also willing to spend money, but it is too much to treat them as fools.

What kind of standards and quotas are the most important things for his industry, and what investment is risky. Even if they think Amber can get a piece of cake in the streaming market, there is also the possibility of being squeezed out by other peers, and everything is not absolute.

Judging from the data, Mann Media has gradually burned less than 800 million yuan. If it were not for the priority of exclusive content, and the launch of "Thor 2"'s traffic attracting results exceeded Red Shirt's expectations, he would not have valued it 4.8 billion yuan.

He believes that the money is already very high. Even if Internet products always show the myth of soaring market value - Facebook has refreshed the crazy industry many times in just three years, but this is not the reason why Amber raises the price like this.

"Because Amber has an advantage that Netflix does not have, which is also the key to our different judgments. To be honest, I think the valuation of 13 billion is low, but before I get the feedback I should have, I am willing to bear the losses that I said were lower."

Seeing Lehman's confident look, Ellen was quickly reviewing the points he didn't pay attention to, but he really couldn't speculate that there were any special methods of large-scale increments besides spending money to expand the library and actively investing in public relations brands.

"Can you tell me in detail?"

"Homemade dramas. Use the sending of new drama clients to attract large numbers of viewers who want to watch the content." Lehman revealed a little bit: "You should know that our TV drama department is operating several new projects, and I will move their first-hand screening channels to streaming."

"Sorry, I don't understand the series and can't tell what value it can produce." Ellen shook his head, "I've heard of "Game of Thrones" and it is said to be a single episode of tens of millions, but it hasn't come out yet, right?"

"It's coming soon, the series will be filmed and cut, and it will be broadcast almost next spring."

"It seems that today's transaction intention cannot be achieved." Ellen said politely: "You actually just want to remind me about this, right? You think "Game of Thrones" will take Amber to the next level."

"There are reasons for this, but I am serious about the offer of 13 billion. If you are willing to accept this condition, we can sign it right away."

"No." Ellen stood up, shook hands with Lehman and said goodbye. "This matter is more important than my personal judgment. I want to go back and discuss. We will talk again if we have the chance."

"Please let's go this trip."

Lehman shook his hands.

“No trouble…”
Chapter completed!